From the / dpa April 09, 2020 – 11:14 am
Nowhere does the coronavirus strike as mercilessly as in New York. But in the “Big Apple” the fighting spirit is unbroken. The residents celebrate their city with Sinatra’s unofficial anthem.
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New York – “If I can make it there, I’ll make it anywhere” (“If I can make it here, I’ll make it anywhere”) – hardly any other song stands for the attitude towards life in the “Big Apple” as “New” York, New York ”by Frank Sinatra. These days this “make or break” mentality is being put to the test. Nowhere in the United States does the coronavirus strike so relentlessly. On Wednesday, Governor Andrew Cuomo again issued death statistics for the state: 779 dead in just one day.
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But the New Yorkers are fighters. Many feel reminded these days of September 11th, when two planes flew into the World Trade Center in the metropolis. Almost 3,000 people died at that time.
The cohesion in the city is also great in the corona crisis. A video shows New Yorkers standing on rooftops, fire stairs and balconies in an unspecified district and singing Sinatra’s “New York, New York” together.
Strict exit restrictions have been in effect for weeks in the state of New York with its almost 20 million inhabitants.
Emergency clinic in a cathedral
In New York City all kinds of buildings are being converted into emergency clinics, for example St. John the Divine Cathedral. Tents for up to 200 patients are to be set up in the almost 200 meter long nave. The crypt below should also be used.
The state of New York is currently the epicenter of the USA in the corona crisis. The number of cases there is many times higher than in other countries – also because significantly more is tested there.
The New York City police officers are also particularly hard hit. At least twelve employees have already died in connection with suspected coronavirus infections, the news channel CNN reported on Tuesday. More than 2000 other employees are infected with the Sars-CoV-2 pathogen.
Governor Cuomo and New York Mayor Bill de Blasio are now expressing the faint hope that the east coast state may have passed the height of the crisis.